Free Bitter Harvest by Sheila Connolly

housecleaning. You finished eating?”
    “Yes.” Seth dusted the crumbs off his hands. “Lead on.”
    Meg pulled the card table into the front parlor, where the coals from the dying fire were sending out little eddies of warmth. Seth added one log to it as Meg unfurled a clean sheet on the table. “Gail will be so proud of me! At least I’m keeping it clean.” She carefully laid the fragile piece of cloth flat on the sheet, smoothing it out gently. “Maybe I should take some pictures, in case it decides to crumble to dust immediately.”
    “You must be thinking of Egyptian tombs. This is quite a bit younger.”
    “I know, but it can’t hurt.” She retrieved her camera from the sideboard in the dining room, came back, and snapped a series of photos, including close-ups of the details. “You know, sometimes you can use software to edit pictures and increase the contrast, make them easier to decipher. I’ve done it for tombstones.”
    “I can see that makes sense,” Seth said, apparently warming to the process.
    “Maybe I should have gotten a shot of it in situ,” Meg said dubiously.
    “Meg, this isn’t a crime scene. You found it in your closet. Why would anyone worry about provenance, anyway?”
    Meg shrugged. “You never know. What if it turns out this was made by Abigail Adams or Emily Dickinson or someone like that? It could be valuable.”
    “Let’s just take it one step at a time. As you pointed out, it won’t be light out much longer.”
    “Okay, okay. So, here we have a piece of handembroidery, and we’re guessing it’s silk thread on a piece of linen. It measures maybe two feet high, and eighteen inches across, I’m guessing. It’s in pretty good condition, all things considered—no holes or tears. The colors are a bit faded, but that’s not unusual, is it?”
    “It hasn’t been exposed to light in a while, so it’s better than it might be. Go on,” Seth replied.
    “You know, this is really kind of interesting. There are five panels, it looks like. The big one at the top—that’s a family record! How wonderful! All the births and deaths, neatly lined up. Then there’s a line for who made it—I’ll have to wait to decipher that when I can clean it up a little more. Then a row of tombstones.”
    Seth was warming to the subject. “You notice there’s only one person mourning, a girl or woman on the left. Maybe the girl who made it? And clusters of flowers, probably to fill in the spaces on the side. A nice flower border, too—I wonder if it’s purely decorative, or if they represent a real plant?”
    “Interesting thought,” Meg said absently, still studying the embroidery. “Then a quotation of some sort, and then at the bottom, a white house. You think it could be this one?” When Seth looked skeptical, Meg protested, “Yes, I know, it’s a pretty generic Colonial, two stories, roof, and chimneys. But look at the addition at the back—doesn’t that look just like my shed? And then there are trees—oh, look, Seth, at that little group with a fence around it. Do you think they’re apple trees? They’ve got these little red dots—it looks like each one is a single knot.”
    “Could be,” Seth agreed. “Besides, I’d hate to rain on your parade.”
    “I’m bowled over by your enthusiasm, sir. I think it’s a wonderful piece. Can you make out the surname?”
    “It looks like Violet Cox to me for the maker, and, Lamb-something for the rest of them.”
    “How odd—I don’t recognize either name from around here. I suppose things could have changed a lot since this was made. Are there any Coxes around here?”
    “Not that I know of at the moment, but there could have been during the eighteenth century.”
    “I’ll have to check on that. So we have the parents at the bottom of the list, and then a lot of children. Oh, dear—most of the children seem to have died very young. How sad. How awful that would be, to watch your family die. But I don’t see the name